This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting held in Washington, DC. The project creates a STEM ecosystem in a severely under-resourced urban community. The Chicago Zoological Society, which operates Brookfield Zoo, is expanding a community partnership with Eden Place Nature Center in Chicago’s Fuller Park Neighborhood and offering a full suite of environmental science learning opportunities for teachers, youth, families, and adults. A research component is led by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Youth Action Crews map the youth development programs and places in their neighborhoods in order to raise public awareness of the opportunities—and of where such opportunities don’t exist.
This report discusses the legacy and impact of YouthALIVE! (Youth Achievement through Learning, Involvement, Volunteering, and Employment), an initiative in the 1990s of the Association of Science-Technology Centers with support from the DeWitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund to enable museums and science centers to establish programs for youth from underserved populations. YouthALIVE! programs are characterized by intensive, multi-year engagement in the life of the institution, including a wide variety of opportunities for science teaching, learning, and mentoring, and conducting scientific
Our goal is to demonstrate an educational model fully commensurate with the demands of the 21st Century workforce, and more specifically, with the emerging “green-tech” economy. We recognize a pressing need creating more sustainable solutions for the (human) built-environment and of stabilizing economic patterns that uphold sustainable systems. to prepare citizens for the challenges of The ASCEND model is designed to encourage these societal shifts, but at the same time, it is an attempt to put theory into practice - activating educational practices aligned with research on human development and cognition. For some time now strong recommendations for apprenticeship learning have emphasized the function of legitimate peripheral participation – the possibility of which becomes more prevalent in robust communities of practice. As compared to top-down approaches (typical of formal education settings) these "learning communities" are seen as being more closely aligned with our natural propensities for learning and cognition. ASCEND represents a design-experiment -an attempt to learn how we can create and sustain opportunities for apprenticeship learning in an interdisciplinary arena at the leading edge of technical innovation. In addition, the ASCEND model introduces and examines the efficacy of “digital storytelling” as an alternative to more traditional forms of apprenticeship learning and as a means to engage and advance this and future generations in STEM. A further goal is to develop innovative measures of assessment commensurate with this new model of apprenticeship learning. Finally ASCEND explore how informal learning organizations (museums, libraries, preserves etc.) can use digital storytelling to develop community-driven programs inclusive of at-risk youth and other hard to reach audiences.
This Pathways project from the Ocean Discovery Institute (ODI) seeks to develop and pilot a program model designed to fill an identified gap in citizen science research and practice literature: how to effectively engage and better understand how to foster participation among people from under-represented groups in citizen science research. The ODI model is designed around six principles: (1) leaders who are reflective of the community, (2) science that is locally relevant, (3) guided, as opposed to self-guided, experiences, (4) direct interactions with scientists, (5) progressively increasing responsibilities for participants who express interest, and (6) removing barriers to participation, such as transportation, language, family involvement and access to technology. The project addresses environmentally degraded, crime-ridden local canyons, a locally relevant STEM-related issue, and leverages the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project's (SCCWRP) regional citizen science effort focused on identifying the sources and pathways of trash through regional watersheds. The scientific research components of the project focus on four canyons in the area, employing sampling methods developed by SCCWRP. Youth who are part of other ODI programs and who have demonstrated leadership and interest in science, work with the project team to scaffold family and youth participation in project activities taking place during afterschool and weekend time. Based on continued participation in the project, community participants can become more involved in the project, starting as "new scientists" and moving through "returning scientists" to "expert scientists" roles. The project evaluation seeks to identify the role and importance of the components of the proposed model with respect to participation, retention, and learning by participants from groups under-represented in STEM. The dissemination products of this Pathways project include a white paper describing the model and lessons learned as well as presentations to community groups and education and citizen science practitioners. Based on insights from the iterative approach to the model during this Pathways study, a subsequent full-scale development project would seek to engage citizen science projects around the nation in adapting the model to increase participation of individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM, including building out ODI's citizen science programming.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lindsay GoodwinRoxanne RuzicTheresa Sinicrope Talley
This full-scale project addresses the need for more youth, especially girls, to pursue an interest in engineering and eventually fill a critical workforce need. The project leverages museum-based exhibits, girls' activity groups, and social media to enhance participants' engineering-related interests and identities. The project includes the following bilingual deliverables: (1) Creative Solutions programming will engage girls in group oriented engineering activities at partner community-based organizations, where the activities highlight altruistic, personally relevant, and social aspects of engineering. Existing community groups will use the activities in their regular meeting structure. Visits to the museum exhibits, titled Design Your World will reinforce messages; (2) Design Your World Exhibits will serve as a community hub at two ISE institutions (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the Hatfield Marine Science Center). They will leverage existing NSF-funded Engineer It! (DRL-9803989) exhibits redesigned to attract, engage, and mobilize a more diverse population by showcasing altruistic, personally relevant, and social aspects of engineering; (3) Digital engagement through targeted use of social media will complement program and exhibit content and be an online portal for groups engaged in the project; (4) A community action group (CAG) will provide professional development opportunities to stakeholders interested in girls' STEM identity (e.g. parents, STEM-based business professionals) to promote effective engineering messaging throughout the community and engage them in supporting project participants; and (5) Longitudinal research will explore how girls construct and negotiate engineering-related identities through discourse across the project activities and over time.
The Chicago Zoological Society (CZS) in collaboration with Eden Place Nature Center, the Fuller Park Community Corporation, and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) will implement the SCIENCES Program, Supporting a Community's Informal Education Needs: Confidence and Empowerment in STEM. The primary goals of this Full Scale Development project are to broaden access to and participation in environmental science, strengthen partnerships between CZS, Eden Place, and UIC, and gain insights into the 'ecosystemic' learning model which promotes scientific literacy and agency in the community. The project targets a low-resource community with a minority audience while the secondary audience is informal science learning organizations and researchers who will advance research in informal learning. The theoretical framework for the project design draws on conservation psychology, informal science learning, civic ecology education, and urban science education to create an ecosystematic, geographically centered approach. The deliverables include research, curriculum, and engaging hands-on programs for youth, families, adults, and teachers, reaching both in-school and out-of-school audiences, in addition to the SCIENCES Implementation Network. Three potential curriculum themes to be explored are water conservation and protection, pollinators for healthy ecosystems, and community resilience to climate change. The SCIENCES project offers a comprehensive suite of engaging programs for community audiences. For example, the year-long Zoo Adventure Passport (ZAP) program for families includes hands-on experiments and field trips, while project-based learning experiences enable teens to create wetlands, design interpretive signage, and develop associated public programming. School-based programs include professional development for teachers on the Great Lakes ecosystem and invasive species. Existing programs that have been previously evaluated and demonstrated to show learning impacts will be adapted and modified to meet the goals of the ecosystemic learning model by providing multiple learning opportunities. New learning resources will also be created to support the content themes and provide continuity. The result will be a comprehensive approach that ensures deep community engagement by individuals, families, and organizations, with cohesiveness provided by the overarching content themes which broaden access to STEM learning resources and leverages partnerships. The project includes both a research and evaluation plan. The primary research question to be addressed is: How does a large informal science learning institution work with a community-based organization to support environmental scientific literacy and agency at all levels of the community? A sociocultural framework will be used for this mixed-methods case study research. Study participants include community leaders, youth, parents, teachers, and staff from Eden Place. The case study sample will include 20 focal individuals drawn from the participant groups and approximately 300 survey participants. Case study data will be triangulated with evaluation data and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. By examining changes from the baseline following the implementation of the community programs, the findings may provide insight on agency and science literacy among community members. The comprehensive, mixed-methods evaluation plan employs a quasi-experimental design and incorporates front-end, formative, and summative evaluation components. The evaluation questions address the quality of the processes and products, access to environmental science learning opportunities, environmental science literacy, sustainability, and barriers to implementation. An extensive dissemination plan is proposed with a dual emphasis on meeting stakeholders' needs at multiple levels. The evaluation and research teams will emphasize publication in peer reviewed journals and presentations at conferences for informal science education professionals. Findings will be shared with the Fuller Park community stakeholders using creative methods such as one-page research briefs written in layperson's language, videos, and recorded interviews with participants. The local project Advisory Board will also be actively involved in the dissemination of findings to community constituents. The SCIENCES National Amplification Network will be created and work collaboratively with the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the Metropolitan Green Spaces Alliance to disseminate the model. Collectively, the activities and deliverables outlined in this proposal will advance the discovery of sustainable models of community-based learning while the research will advance the understanding of informal learning support for science literacy and agency.
This paper discusses the methodologies, key findings, and implications of a research project that examined the effectiveness of exhibits for making children understand scientific concepts. The two-part study was conducted at Nehru Science Centre (Bombay, India).
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Vijay JavlekarVisitor Studies Association
This article is a report of the impact assessment of two outreach programs to primary schools run by the Botswana National Museum. The oldest of the programs, Zebra-on-Wheels was officially launched in 1980 and has involved all the primary schools in the country at least twice. The study aimed to establish the impact of the two programs and make recommendations for possible improvements. Thirty-eight schools throughout Botswana participated in the study. Teachers in these schools were interviewed and classroom observation sessions were carried out. Teachers’ observations about the two programs
This paper discusses efforts at the New England Aquarium to attract multicultural audiences, with projects like the Lake Victoria exhibit. This NSF-funded, collaborative project, centered on Lake Victoria in East Africa, addresses the aquarium's lack of representation by racial minorities, specifically Boston's African-American community.
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Jason J. DrebitkoGillian NelsonVisitor Studies Association
In this article, Albert Ndayitwayeko, AFGRAD Fellow at the University of Florida, and John J. Koran, Jr., Professor and Curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, analyze the informal education field in the Republic of Burundi, a small country located in Central Africa. This discussion focuses on natural history museums and zoos, their exhibits and visitor behavior, which may serve as a valuable and less expensive adjunct to formal learning.
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Albert NdayitwayekoJohn J. Koran, Jr.
In this article, Thomas A. More of the U.S. Forest Service presents a review and discussion of current research on the benefits of urban parks. More also discusses the issues of fairness in the distribution of these benefits (i.e. the less affluent receive fewer services and servies of lesser quality).